31 March, 2006

BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS NO INTEREST IN PROSECUTING SREBRENICA MASSACRE SUSPECTS

Croat gunman won't face torture charges

BOSTON -- Marko Boskic, accused of being one of eight gunmen who massacred 1,200 Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995, will not be charged under a special U.S. torture law.

The alleged Bosnian Serb Army war criminal -- who was found living in Peabody, Mass. -- will instead face charges that he lied on his immigration forms when he came to the United States as a refugee. If convicted, he would probably face a short sentence, followed by deportation, the Boston Globe reported.

Federal prosecutors and FBI agents had hoped to bring more serious charges against Boskic, which could have resulted in a life prison term or even a death sentence.

Some rights activists accused the Bush administration of not bringing charges against Boskic out of fear of setting a precedent that could hinder U.S. interrogators in the war on terrorism.

To win a conviction in a case such as Boskic's, however, prosecutors would have to prove the defendant intentionally set out to make his victims suffer while executing them.

"Whatever he did, he was coerced into doing it," said Max Stern, Boskic's attorney. "They would have an impossible burden to prove the case."

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Srebrenica Genocide is not a matter of anybody's opinion; it's a judicial fact recognized first by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and subsequently by the International Court of Justice.